Paula Vennells tried to cover-up Post Office failings, claims skilled

Shamed former Post Office boss Paula Vennells ‘frequently and consistently attempted to steer’ investigators away from uncovering potential miscarriages of justice, a computer expert hired to scrutinise its doomed Horizon IT system said.

Ian Henderson, from forensic accountants Second Sight, claimed Post Office bosses were ‘constantly sabotaging our efforts to seek the truth irrespective of the consequences’ and said he had concerned over a ‘cover-up’, after lifting the lid on what was going on.

More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted for theft by the Post Office and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as the faulty IT system it used, known as Horizon, made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.

Many were sent to jail and bankrupted, while at least four are believed to have taken their own lives over it.

Prosecutions continued to happen under the watch of disgraced chief executive Ms Vennells, despite repeatedly being told there were concerns about the reliability of the evidence used to take innocent workers to court.

Shamed former Post Office boss Paula Vennells ‘frequently and consistently attempted to steer’ investigators away from uncovering potential miscarriages of justice, a computer expert hired to scrutinise its doomed Horizon IT system said

Ian Henderson, from forensic accountants Second Sight, claimed Post Office bosses were ‘constantly sabotaging our efforts to seek the truth irrespective of the consequences’ 

The long-running inquiry into what happened today heard from Mr Henderson, who said he found it ‘absurd’ that Post Office lawyers removed documents from cases which appeared to vindicate staff of theft.

In his witness statement, he said: ‘Paula Vennells frequently and consistently attempted to steer Second Sight away from investigating potential miscarriages of justice.

‘When I first met Paula Vennells, she told me that Post Office was the nation’s most trusted brand with a history of over 400 years.

‘As our work continued, I increasingly formed the view that because of this history, Post Office somehow felt it was above the law.’He said there were more people working in the Post Office’s public relations department than in its legal department, which he described as ‘relatively small bearing in mind the size and importance of the organisation’.

He said one lawyer ‘struck me more as an administrator’ than a lawyer, and said his ‘level of knowledge of prosecutions actually seemed in my mind to be quite limited’.

Mr Henderson, whose parents ran a rural Post Office, added that by summer 2013, he came to the view that Horizon ‘was not the robust, error-free system claimed by Post Office’.

He added: ‘I was beginning to form the view that no prosecution relying on Horizon evidence could be safe.’He said suggestions contentious material was ‘airbrushed out’ by Post Office lawyers meant ‘it was beginning to look more like a cover-up than a genuine concern about legal professional privilege’.

Mr Henderson said he did not think this was one-off behaviour.

He said: ‘They didn’t want difficult information to see the light of day, and we were having to fight constantly for access to documents that we thought were relevant to our work.’Mr Henderson opened his testimony by asking to amend his witness statement to add the honorific ‘Sir’ in reference to Post Office hero Alan Bates, drawing cheers from those attending the inquiry in central London.

Sir Alan was awarded a knighthood in the King’s Birthday Honours this month after his landmark campaign for justice for hundreds of wrongly convicted postmasters.

Second Sight began investigating in summer 2012 and published its interim report a year later uncovering major concerns with the reliability of the system, and the victimisation of sub-postmasters – casting serious doubt over the strength of prosecutions.

This was despite being denied access to crucial information by the Post Office such as error logs.

Last month, former boss Ms Vennells conceded miscarriages of justice could have been discovered sooner if the initial plan for forensic accountants Second Sight to properly scrutinise several convictions had been carried out, rather than just two or three

Second Sight was sacked by the Post Office in 2015, but not before uncovering a slew of system flaws and identifying that prosecutions appeared to be motivated by recovering losses. Its second interim report was never published.

Last month, former boss Ms Vennells conceded miscarriages of justice could have been discovered sooner if the initial plan for forensic accountants Second Sight to properly scrutinise several convictions had been carried out, rather than just two or three.

The inquiry previously heard evidence from Lord (James) Arbuthnot, stood down as an MP in 2015 and took up a seat in the Lords, but took up the case of his constituent Jo Hamilton, whose plight was depicted in the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.

Ms Hamilton was falsely accused of taking the money from the Post Office branch she ran in South Warnborough, Hampshire.

She eventually pleaded guilty to false accounting in fear of going to jail and was prosecuted in 2006, but had her conviction quashed in 2021 when she was found to be a victim of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Lord Arbuthnot said he felt by 2015 that Post Office bosses were worried about Second Sight ‘actually uncovering something really crucial about Horizon – they were worried that Second Sight was getting too close to the truth’.

He told the inquiry: ‘It posed an existential threat to the future of Horizon. And that in turn posed an existential threat to the future of the Post Office.’ 

The inquiry continues.